UN Agency Inks $3.2 Million Deal With Agresso

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Agresso (www.agresso.com/usa), the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market's definition of agility, announced today that it has secured a $3.2 million contract with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations specialized agency with a membership of 189 Contracting States, offices in eight countries and some 700 employees worldwide.

ICAO chose Agresso's fully integrated suite of role- and web-based enterprise resource planning system to support administrative and financial operations in its Montreal Headquarters and eventually in its Regional offices located in Bangkok, Cairo, Dakar, Lima, Mexico, Nairobi and Paris. Agresso's reporting capabilities and extensive standard features were the decider for ICAO executives in a head to head compete for the business against Microsoft.

"We were looking for an integrated, mid-market solution from a vendor that had a track record of success in the government and UN sector," said Dalton de Andrade, ICAO's project manager for this implementation. "While we were impressed with Agresso's powerful reporting capabilities, it was the system's ability to provide broader functionality without customizations and the company's 25-year track record of success within the public and not-for-profit sectors that closed the deal. Agresso has an architecture that is well suited to ICAO and proven past experiences with UN and government organizations."

"Our business processes are currently driven by aging technology, which relies too heavily on manual procedures and operates on redundant and unsynchronized data," continued Mr. de Andrade. "The new systems will reduce overall operating costs in terms of human and financial resources."

The International Civil Aviation Organization will implement the complete Agresso Business World suite, including Financial Management; Human Resources and Payroll; Procurement Management; Project Costing and Billing; Reporting and Analytics; and Business Process Automation modules.

"Agresso is competing with the largest ERP players in the global market and winning with increased frequency," said Shelley Zapp, president of Agresso North America. "While we have always had the ability to more cost-effectively serve dynamic businesses, the escalation of mergers, executive management changes and regulatory needs have escalated in the last 12-18 months. Agresso's ideal customer is what we call a 'BLINC' company: Businesses Living In Change. We have a tightly integrated data, business process and information delivery model that can't be matched by anyone else in the competitive landscape -- and it saves our customers substantial cost and people resources to make changes throughout the life of their Agresso implementation. In fact, we call it, 'ERP with No Expiration Date.'

About Agresso

Agresso (www.agresso.com/USA) is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) subsidiary of Netherlands-based Unit 4 Agresso (Dutch Stock Exchange EURONET- U4AGR), a $450 million provider of business software. Positioned among enterprise solution providers as "The ERP Market's Definition of Agility," Agresso offers a fully-integrated suite of ERP solutions for companies in the professional services and public sector. Over 2,400 companies and organizations in 100 countries deploy Agresso Business World for both operational support and strategic management. The company's role-based, Web Services and Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabled solutions include: Financial Management, Human Resources and Payroll, Procurement Management, Project Costing and Billing, Reporting and Analytics and Business Process Automation. Agresso - North America, headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, launched officially into the U.S. market in July 2006.

About International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency and regularity, as well as for aviation environmental protection. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 189 Contracting States.

    For further information contact:
    Greg Pitkoff/Christa Conte
    212-896-1291/212-896-1238
    gpitkoff@kcsa.com / cconte@kcsa.com